The moments of inertia (Mol) of odd-A and even-even rare-earth nuclei are calculated using the Nilsson + BCS method with and without the blocking effect taken into account. The calculated MoIs with blocking considered is smaller than that without blocking considered. The Mor of an odd-A nucleus depends strongly on which orbital is occupied by the odd nucleon. Although the calculated MoI's are systematically smaller than the data, the large fluctuations in the experimental odd-even differences in MoI's can be reproduced qualitatively. This is contrary to the common assertion that the MoI of an odd-A nucleus is some 15% larger than those of its neighboring even-even nuclei with the BCS theory and is helpful to understand the appearance of normally deformed identical bands in an odd-A nucleus and its even-even neighbors under the mean-field (BCS) approximation.